Resources

Recent Research and Additional Resources

This report finds that regardless of model specification, there is no statistical evidence that home values near turbines are affected in the post-construction or post-announcement/pre-construction periods. Previous research on potentially analogous disamenities (e.g., high-voltage transmission lines, roads) suggests that the property-value effect of wind turbines is likely to be small, on average, if it is present at all, potentially helping to explain why no evidence of an effect has been found in the current research. Click here for the PDF.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center commissioned this report to study whether home values were affected by proximity to wind turbines. An analysis of more than 122,000 Massachusetts home sales between 1998 and 2012 found no statistically significant evidence that proximity to a wind turbine affects home values.

While many people will benefit indirectly from the clean air and economic growth brought about by wind power development, farmers can benefit directly. Wind power can provide an important economic boost to farmers. Large wind turbines typically use less than half an acre of land, including access roads, so farmers can continue to plant crops and graze livestock right up to the base of the turbines. Read the full report here.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) in collaboration with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) convened a panel of independent experts to identify any documented or potential health impacts of risks that may be associated with exposure to wind turbines, and, specifically, to facilitate discussion of wind turbines and public health based on scientific findings. This paper presents their findings, coming to the following conclusions:

There is insufficient evidence that the noise from wind turbines is directly causing health problems or disease.

Claims that infrasound from wind turbines directly affects the vestibular system have not been demonstrated scientifically.

Available evidence shows that the infrasound levels near wind turbines cannot impact the vestibular system.

There is no evidence for a set of health effects from exposure to wind turbines that could be characterized as a "Wind Turbine Syndrome."

The weight of evidence suggests no association between noise from wind turbines and measures of psychological distress or mental health problems.

The available Australian and international evidence does not support the view that the infrasound or low-frequency sound generated by wind farms, as they are currently regulated in Australia, causes adverse health effects on populations residing in their vicinity. The infrasound and low-frequency sound generated by modern wind farms in Australia is well below the level where known health effects occur, and there is no accepted physiological mechanism where sub-audible infrasound could cause health effects.

In this white paper, the Minnnesota Department of Health looks at the health impacts of wind turbines, particularly sound-related, and concludes that "evidence is scant" of vestibular effects from low-frequency sounds created by wind turbines.

This paper analyzes the peer-reviewed literature on wind turbines and health and reports that, to date, no peer-reviewed articles demonstrate a direct causal link between people living in proximity to modern wind turbines, the noise they emit, and resulting physiological health effects.

An independent organization of acoustical experts states that the infrasound generated by wind farms is lower than many other forms of infrasound already in the environment, including the sound produced by our own heartbeats.

Acoustic engineers are increasingly frustrated by community opposition to wind farm development as local opposition groups—often supported nationally by anonymous donors—snub scientific evidence in favor of myth and misinformation about turbine noise. Click here for the PDF.